Ice vending machines that dispense ice or bags of ice to a customer after an onsite payment are well known in the art. An example of an ice vending machine is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,735,527, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. This type of machine is commercially available for purchase from Ice House America, Inc., which is the assignee of the patent. This machine is typically the size of a small building and oftentimes comprises a plurality of interior rooms. In one room, which is maintained at or below water freezing temperature, ice is made and stored. The ice is then transported into another interior room with a higher nonfreezing temperature having a service door to the outside as well as an ice dispensing opening, where the ice is dispensed to the exterior when a customer makes a purchase with money and/or a credit card. In some implementations, the ice is dispensed as either ice or ice in a plastic bag, as selected by the customer.
Water vending machines that dispense water to a customer's bottle or other customer-provided storage vessel after an onsite payment are well known in the art. Furthermore, current owners of ice vending machines wish to install some type of water vending machine on or in connection with their existing ice vending machines in order to provide customers with both ice and potable drinking water.
One current design of a water vending machine that has been available in the marketplace for use in connection with an ice vending machine is a smaller teller version that is essentially retrofitted into an ice vending machine. This smaller teller version is mounted above ground at a level that enables a customer to operate it without having to bend down. This current water teller design requires an installer to undesirably cut out a very large rectangular opening in a wall of the ice vending machine, which is typically the size of the water teller, in order to install the teller. The water teller is then inserted into this opening from within the ice vending machine and electrical power, water supply, and sometimes drainage lines are connected to the teller from inside the ice vending machine. Furthermore, the teller is usually installed in a wall of the room that does not make/store ice, because of the significant requisite compromise to the insulation. Also, monies pertaining to water purchases are collected from the inside of the ice vending machine.
The current water teller design has at least two major shortcomings. While being secure, this design limits the amount of available locations on the building in which it can be installed due to conflicting, installed, inside hardware and accessibility for service. In addition, when these stainless steel tellers are installed in an ice vending machine, there is a significant compromise of the insolation (the R rating) due to cutting such a large hole in one of its exterior walls.